Storymania - Of Bikes And Boys by Ali Rizvi

Of Bikes And Boys
Ali Rizvi

I always had trouble making friends when I was a small boy. My parents always told me that it was a teen thing and that it will go away soon. I always thought their advice was a crap because I wasn’t even a teen at the time. I was only eleven. Nonetheless I respected what ever they said and followed it. Of course, just like any kid at that age, I went my own ways occasionally and that is another story.
It was 1994 and I was admitted in a very elegant private school in Islamabad called “the BEACON HOUSE”. Islamabad is a very beautiful city incase you (the reader of course) have never been, in fact, it’s the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Anyway the school was very impressively diverse, at least for that time period. And by diverse I mean it had Pakistani kids, American kids, British kids, African kids, and numerous others. Even though they all played together they only hung out with their own. I don’t know if that was good or not but they did share one thing in common, they were all extremely rich spoiled brats.

I didn’t like the school itself. All the boys had to wear this retarded uniform. It consisted of a pair of navy blue polyester pants, a full sleeved white collared shirt, a red and navy blue tie with horizontal stripes that had an elastic string, a red sweater, and a heavy navy blue blazer with the school name and monogram on the front pocket. The school monogram was what killed me the most. It was a stork feeding a baby stork. How cheesy is that. It was so cheesy it made me want to throw up every time I looked at it. The whole attire made me look like a dim-witted robot or something.

I, on the other hand, would never fit in with any kind of crowd. For starters I never talked much and I wasn’t rich but what really set me apart from others was that I was half Italian and half Pakistani, hence the isolation. There were a few Italians but they were just too damn proud to even come talk to me. I didn’t know any Italian anyway. It was pretty much the same thing with the Pakistani kids. And my parents said it would all go away. Yeah right.

It was a sunny day and I was sitting outside by myself on a wooden bench, as usual. I don’t know why it took me long to realize but eventually I saw the “new kid” sitting on the other end of the bench. God knows how long he had been there. His name was Terry and he was an isolated kid just like me. His parents had split up and he stayed with his dad. Apparently, one of the kids found out about it and soon enough every one knew about it. Living with a single parent was the worse thing that could happen to some one at that time, with the kids taunting terry and everything; it was like living under a curse for him. Damn near a sin or something.

Anyway he was sitting with a bologna sandwich in his hand. He was staring straight in the air I presumed. It looked kinda funny. You see he was only a grade higher than me but he was a rather tall fellow. His hands covered the entire sandwich and his knees seemed like they’d burst through the wooden table any second now. He had a pointy nose like a parrot, which didn’t seem to fit in with his long black hair. So in all those aspects I thought he looked funny. Nonetheless he looked like a decent person so I took the liberty of saying “hi” out loud. For some odd reason he was very startled at my remark and snapped out of his day dreaming by jerking his head backward. He dropped the uneaten sandwich, spilling its contents on his lap. He looked at it and then at me in a confused way and got even more confused when I started laughing my ass off. I assumed he hadn’t minded my outburst because a few seconds later he joined me in it. I don’t know what the hell was so funny but we laughed our asses off for the longest time.

I didn’t realize it till it hit me that I had made a friend that day, in the oddest of ways. We started hanging out after that. I learned that his mother lived in England and he was planning to go there in a few years but till then he’d hang out with me and we would have the best time ever.

There was a vital advantage to both of us in our friendship. He was twelve and much stronger than me. I was eleven and knew how to use my brain really well. I helped him with his schoolwork and he’d help me with the punk kids. Yep, he had the muscle and I had the brains and we did anything we wanted in school. We made fun of the kids who we thought were the “leaders” of different groups and who supposedly ran the playground. We even went a step further and beat up some of the bullies who picked on little kids. No one dared to stop us in that school. We’d walk in between a game of “it” and were accepted with open arms. Terry was also good with tools. With his help I customized my BMX and his mountain bike. They had all the cool gizmos and gadgets complete with new paint and reflector lights of damn near every color of the rainbow. We were living life of elementary school to the fullest and we had it all: from fame and respect to nice rides and pretty girls with pink knees that just adored us (that’s my opinion anyhow). You named it we had it. We were almost like super heroes. Muscle dude and Brainiac; protectors of the weak.

The years that went by weren’t that bad till the summer of 1997. We were thirteen and fourteen respectably. It was Terry’s time to leave for London, to go live with his mom. I wasn’t that upset because I learned my family was going to move to London only a month after he’d leave. Things weren’t exactly the same in London as they were back home. Pretty much everything changed except for our friendship and our bicycles. Both of us were put in separate private schools by our parents. Totally unintentional of course. I went to the Lodge and he to attended the Brimley. Supposedly both were among the best Christian boarding schools at the time in England, like we cared. We still hung out on the weekends and made fun of each other’s school. The schools had a “bloody wicked rivalry” going on, in the words of Bill, a Scottish roommate of mine.

It was the fall of 1997. We became very distant and all because of our schoolwork. Of course it meant we barely met anymore. The only exception was when we talked on the phone about once a week or so and lied about how many girls we had been with.
I hadn’t talked to Terry in about two weeks. I turned fourteen that year and was growing very impatient with the Lodge’s strict rules. We weren’t supposed to smoke, play cards for money, or even supposed to gather around in groups of more than three after seven in the night in our dorms. One night around eight there was a loud knock on the door.

Bill opened the door, confronting Brad, the dorm monitor for our floor.

“Ali. Headmaster’s office, on the double. And wash your goddamn face before you go.”

Called so unexpectedly to the office of the headmaster, I knew something was terribly wrong. I went over in my mind what I might have done this time but couldn’t think of anything. I did bang this boys head on the restroom faucet, but only because he had tried to come on to me. It happened a day ago and everyone knew about it but even that wasn’t so bad as to have me called from the dorm to confront the headmaster. The headmaster liked to be called Dr. Billings. He also loved to appear in every assembly in academic ceremonial gown – a gaudy hood and mortarboard with a gold lining.

Anyway, I arrived at the wood paneled office of Dr. Billings. The weird thing about him was that his facial features reminded me of my uncle. The square face and intimidating eyebrows and all. He wasn’t wearing his gown only a dark gray suit. He came out from around the desk and shook my hand: an alarming sign by the way.
“My dear boy,” he said while turning the monitor on his desk towards me. “I’m afraid I have the most terrible news for you. Your father’s in France and your mother’s in Manchester so your parents couldn’t call you but your mother did send me this email. I really think it’s best if you read it for yourself son.”

PLEASE ADVISE MY SON ALI THAT HIS FRIEND TERRY AND HIS FAMILY HAS PASSED AWAY IN A CAR ACCIDENT THIS AFTERNOON. ADVISE HIM ALSO THAT I WILL FLY TO LONDON AS SOON AS I CAN. I WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF YOU COMFORT THE BOY AS BEST AS YOU CAN TILL I GET THERE.
SAJIDA RIZVI

I was moved to the VIP suite of the Lodge till my parents arrived. It was used for visiting church officials or events like these. I didn’t know what to do. I only had one friend and he had died. His family, which was his mother, two brothers, and a little sister, had all gone with him. I didn’t know what to think. All I thought about was what will happen to his bike. The one we customized and everything.

Around nine o clock. My teachers came to see me. My friends came. The boy whose head I’d banged on the restroom faucet came. I didn’t say much to them. It felt really weird being in that position. People just come in bombard you with condolences, which do nothing but depress you even further. All you really wish for at that point is some lousy drink and for it all to just go away.

Old Dr. Latrobe. The two hundred year old school chaplain came to see me. He was an Episcopal divine. He offered to pray with me and took no offense to when I said no, because I was a Muslim. I later found out his doctorate was phony and that’s another story. Anyway I didn’t remember much that night but his words I still remember.
“Death is a part of life son. Everyone has to die sometime. Mourning is painful. Sometimes it’s more than we can bear. We don’t mourn because our loved one is dead but because we loved that person. So if you don’t love, you don’t mourn. But love like death is a part of life son. It is hard to endure mourning but we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I thanked him when he left. Heavy words for a kid, but they helped me a lot. I was only fourteen. My mother came the next morning and we attended the funerals the day after that. His uncle, who took control of everything, told me that someone broke in Terry’s house later that month and stole various items including his bike. We moved to Houston, Texas the following spring. I didn’t make that many friends and didn’t talk much since then. I rarely ever rode my bike either, matter of fact, it got stolen on the fourth of July the next year.